THEEyESHa DOwwIng

Your weapon of choice is extremely important: if you’re using a shit eyeliner, your eyeliner is probably going to look shit. This, however, does not mean expensive!!! If you’re looking for a good eyeliner that isn’t painful on the pocket, I love the Maybelline HyperEasy — it has an easyuse brush tip and is super black! But be warned; it’s more on the liquid side, so it takes a bit of practise. Otherwise, my favourite liner is the Stila Stay All Day: stunning, fabulous, gorgeousnever did a gay wrong.

All this said, you don’t have to use a liquid liner at all. Eyeshadow on a damp angled brush will do just fine and it’s great to practise with. If you’re struggling, put a piece of cello-tape angled up from your outer corner and use it to create the edge of your eyeshadow wing — baby-gay friendly! Whether you blend the upper edge or not is up to you; it will produce two very different looks.

Calm down, baby-gay, you’re probably making this harder than it needs to be, and that’s okay. I’ve been there. Not all eye-shapes require a fulllength wing from tear duct to eyebrow. You can easily get away with a half liner, and half liner is way easier to do (as described above).

If you’ve got big old bug eyes like yours truly, a bigger liner does work better. We’re not here to pussy-out with some dainty crap. You can always make it gayer.

Keep your eye open when drawing on the outer wing. This will allow you to see the shape you’re creating and get an idea of how it will look when you’re finished.

Draw the wing first from the end of your eye before lining the eyelid. You don’t want to be making your liner bigger and bigger trying to make them seamless.

Start from the centre of your iris and work outward. Use the pen shape of the brush to create a tapered shape from centre to wing.

Clean up your mess. Think negative space. Use makeup remover first with a q-tip to clean the edges of your wing and follow up with concealer if needed.

If you struggle with eyeliner, it could be because of your eye shape. The conventional Tumblr eyeliner doesn’t work the best for hooded eyes or monolids. That doesn’t mean you can’t do eyeliner - or just do a big ole wing anyway! Either way, here are some tips to make things a little easier for you.

Keep your eye open when doing the liner! A common tip, but it helps a lot to see the amount of space you’re working with, prohibiting that oh-shit moment when you look up and the liner disappears.

Make sure your liner dries or to set your liner with loose powder before looking up. Hooded eye shapes have a tendency to get oily and stamp the liner back onto the eyelid, making a big mess. Putting a lid shadow all over once you’re finished your liner will also help it stay nice all day.

Work with the eye. I seriously love a downturned liner, which is a bit harder to master, but looks stunning on hooded eyes and monolids. Try playing around with eyeshadow on an angled brush and create a shape that sits perfectly on your eye.

If all else fails, go big or go home. Keep your eye open and draw on the wing over your eyelid. Don’t stress about how much skin you’re actually painting, just focus on what the shape looks like with the eye open. Editorial glamour!

Play around with shapes and colours. Fuck around and find out! Eyeliner is meant to be fun and gay — do it justice. You don’t need to keep it conventional and you don’t need to be like everyone else. You got this!